LA Golf Face ID drivers: What you need to know about the new Bryson-designed big stick

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: LA Golf, the high-end shaft manufacturer that has started to dip its toe into golf clubs, makes its biggest splash with the new Face ID driver, which was developed in conjunction with reigning U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau. DeChambeau worked extensively with LA Golf’s Jeff Meyer, chief design officer, on a face curvature theory that seeks to match the driver’s bulge (heel-to-toe radius) and roll (crown-to-sole radius) to each player’s swing speed and typical ball flight and way of delivering the club. That matching is designed to significantly decrease the left and right misses associated with mis-hits.

PRICE: $650. Five models: Face ID: 13-12 (swing speeds under 90 mph); Face ID: 12-11 (90-109 mph); Face ID: 10-10 (110-124 mph); Face ID: 9-9 (125-134 mph); Face ID: 8-7 (135 mph and higher).

3 Cool Things

1. Shifting gears. While DeChambeau seems like a pretty distinct and limited audience for redesigning a driver, what is clear is that he has been frustrated with drivers (and other clubs) that don’t seem to offer solutions for what he sees as the unique challenges presented by his faster clubhead speeds. What is surprising is how DeChambeau and LA Golf’s Meyer have hit upon a solution that goes beyond solving for just players who swing north of 120 mph.

What further seems more than a little interesting is how their modern-day solution involves one of the oldest concepts of wood design theory, something that dates to the 1880s. The idea is bulge and roll, or face curvature, and generally involves how much the toe and heel sections flare open. The idea, known as gear effect, is that the curvature allows a mis-hit off the toe to start farther right of the center line so it can curve back toward the center line. Because of the center of gravity location within a driver head, a shot off the toe side will launch with what amounts to be built-in draw spin, or fade spin on a heel impact. So without the proper curvature, that toe-side mishit will remain too far right of the target, or conversely with not enough curvature toe mis-hits could hook severely to the left. The same applies for high and low misses, where the face curvature is known as roll.

DeChambeau often felt his mis-hits with most modern drivers were hooking or fading too much, Meyer said. That’s likely a result of modern drivers launching with less spin, so that bulge and roll curves often might need to be rethought. But it’s also because of DeChambeau’s exceptional speed, which Meyer said routinely reaches the mid-190s, or more than 20 mph faster than the PGA Tour average.

“What Bryson discovered was that the modern high COR drivers have bulge radius of between 11 and 13.5 inches,” he said via email. “Therefore, they are very flat. At Bryson's ball speed a toe shot will have too much gear effect and end up in the left rough. He also found that heel shots were ending up in the right rough. A more bulbous face geometry with a bulge radius of eight inches, he obtained the correct gear effect that resulted in more fairways being hit. Toe misses were starting right and then drawing to the intended target. Conversely, heel misses started left and the gear effect would fade the ball back to his intended target.”

Several other drivers over recent years, most notably those from TaylorMade, Ping and Cobra, have incorporated different approaches to bulge and roll.

The plan hatched by DeChambeau and Meyer shows a design family where bulge and roll curvature, loft, internal weighting and even shaft model is tied specifically to a player’s clubhead speed and the way he or she delivers the clubhead back to square. Generally, the new LA Golf drivers match that curvature so there’s more toe curvature for a given higher clubhead speed and less for lower speeds.

The design, which features a cast titanium body with a beta titanium face design, also shifts the center of gravity location more forward with the lower lofted versions. In addition, because the more bulbous face design on the lower lofted models is naturally stiffer, Meyer said the face is re-engineered to maximize deflection within the framework of the stiffer structure. The heads also include a rear weight screw in the sole that comes in a variety of sizes to match a player's swing weight preferences.

2. Fit test. LA Golf’s online fitting tool runs the golfer through a series of questions that include topics like swing speed and tempo, current handicap, typical ball flight trajectory and curvature (draw, fade or straight), and performance preferences for distance, accuracy or both.

That process yields a specific model assigned a number, like 12-11, which refers to the curve measurements (in inches) for bulge and roll that will optimize distance and dispersion on mis-hits. The higher the curve number, the flatter the curve. The fitting matrix accommodates swing speeds under 90 mph through over 135 mph, and the general trend is for driver faces to have significantly more curvature for the highest speeds (as little as a seven-inch radius) and less curvature for the slowest speeds (as much as a 13-inch radius). The range of lofts on the five heads in the Face ID family runs from 2.5 degrees to 13.5 degrees. Each head is adjustable plus/minus 1.5 degrees, so for instance, the stock Face ID: 8-7 head features the most bulge and roll, comes with an adjustable loft of 4 degrees (2.5-5.5 degrees) and is built to fit swing speeds of 135 mph or higher. Meanwhile, the Face ID: 13-12 driver comes with a stock adjustable loft of 12 degrees (10.5-13.5) and is built to fit swing speeds of less than 90 mph.

3. Shaft-matching, obviously. LA Golf’s entry into the game came through the development of high-end shafts, and the Face ID driver lineup also will incorporate shafts that match up with each loft/bulge model’s player type. The stock shaft for all models in the Face ID lineup is LA Golf’s A Series shaft, which retails for $300. It’s offered in five weights, five flexes and three launch profiles. Based on a series of questions, a specific A-Series shaft model recommendation accompanies the recommended Face ID driver, along with several other LA Golf shafts. For example, a player with a swing speed of 90-94 miles per hour might be fit to the A Series 50-gram mid-launch 3 flex (regular flex), while a player with a swing speed of 105-109 miles per hour might get the same head recommendation but with an A Series 70-gram mid-launch 5 flex shaft (extra stiff flex).

Meyer said LA Golf also is developing an A.I.-based analytics tool to make recommendations for specific shaft and head models based on video submissions.